


The Spooky Case of the Sanderson Witches

by MoonSilverSprite



Series: Buzzfeed Unsolved - Fictional Disappearances [10]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Hocus Pocus (1993)
Genre: Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, Dark Magic, Halloween, Mystery, POV Outsider, Social Media, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 13:41:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21055346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonSilverSprite/pseuds/MoonSilverSprite
Summary: In 1693, a trio of witches were executed. Three hundred years later, they supposedly returned. Here is what we know from that scary night.





	The Spooky Case of the Sanderson Witches

R: Today on Buzzfeed Unsolved we look at an old case. A very old case indeed.

S: How old are we talking, dude?

R: 1693.

S: Wow, that’s – that’s pretty old.

R: We covered Roanoke; that doesn’t surprise you?

S: Guess not.

R: As many of our viewers are aware, the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a classic case of mass hysteria. But we are not deciding whether these thirteen poor souls were witches. Oh, no. Today we are looking at the supposed reanimation of three of the witches.

S: The Sanderson sisters were three old women that resided in Salem around a year after the height of the main trials. There is little to go on, but records of the time give their names as Winifred, Mary and Sarah.

R: On October 31st 1693, ten-year-old Emily Binx disappeared from the village. Later that day, her older brother Thackery –

S: Sorry? _(wheeze)_

R: Thackery Binx.

S: That’s – the Puritans had weird names, guys.

R: Anyway…Thackery Binx, estimated to be seventeen years old, told a friend that he was going in the woods after Emily. Right to the witches’ house…

S: When a mob raided the house a short while afterwards, they found the corpse of Emily Binx, described as ‘having aged dramatically, no longer a child but sucked dry like a branch in summer’. Thackery was nowhere to be seen. But the scariest part was that the three old women were no longer old – Winifred was said to look in her forties, Mary in her thirties and Sarah about twenty-five.

R: The witches were hung that evening.

S: So…witches sucked life from a child? They – is that really what happened? How did the women look younger again?

R: It’s entirely possible that they could have drained Emily of blood – they might have done something that 1693 science couldn’t find.

S: Well in 1693 science was in its infancy. Isaac Newton had published –

R: It was also the same year he went mad, dude. The witches were hung that night, but not before they set about a curse. That when a candle was lit on Halloween by a virgin, they would return to the land of the living and unless they took the lives of children, would not survive that night.

S: That’s – creepy.

R: You said it. _(clears throat)_ Thackery Binx was never found. When his father was on his deathbed in 1728, he said that Thackery had appeared to him and said that he would make sure that a virgin would not light the candle.

S: His ghost or something?

R: He didn’t say. Over the following three hundred years, many people went close to the house. Travelers, tradesmen, youths – but all were chased away by a black cat. Some said it was the witches’ familiar, some said it was Thackery Binx. Since that’s what he told them.

S: A talking, immortal cat was Thackery Binx?

R: And we’re not even on the main part yet.

S: Oh boy.

R: Exactly three hundred years after the witches were executed, people report that a trio of women in seventeenth-century dress, carrying broomsticks and calling themselves the Sanderson sisters were going around Salem.

S: It was Halloween, wasn’t it? I mean, it was three hundred years. Somebody must have been playing a massive joke.

R: Except that they appeared at a Halloween dance and supposedly cast a spell on the party-goers. Those involved said that ‘Winifred’ started singing and casting a spell so they would dance until they died. The rest of the night was spent with attendees becoming exhausted, hungry, dehydrated and even fainting. But they still danced.

S: Again, mass hysteria. But seriously? Everyone?

R: Pretty much. Some had to go to hospital the following day. It’s a little like the mass dancing in Strasbourg.

S: Any other incidents?

R: Three girls supposedly found three brooms and set off flying that night. One of the girls was found on her roof with the broom. The fact is, there was no way she could have gotten that high without some help. One of the other girls fell down thirty feet at sunrise. The last one was trapped in one of Massachusetts’ tallest trees, over fifteen miles from Salem.

R: That’s just weird, dude. Was the one who fell okay?

S: Thereabouts. She lived, if that’s what you meant.

R: A few years later a young man named Max Denison and his wife Allison published a book on the Sanderson witches. The book is still available in all good bookstores.

S: In the book, the two of them said that witches really did exist and that there were both good and bad witches. The two supposedly saw the three sisters and said they fought them, even giving advice on how to fight black magic. The public called it a farce and a court order had the book moved to fiction. However, many of those in the paranormal community say their story is the truth.

R: The couple still reside in Salem with their children Emily and Thackery.

S: That’s all from us, goodnight.

**Author's Note:**

> Funny, really. I have a fear of witches as a child due to fairy tales - and my Catholic upbringing - then a couple of years ago I became a Wiccan.
> 
> If anyone has any ideas for a future episode, feel free to express your choice.


End file.
